Cold Heart

Chapter 7: I didn't expect that...

ASHTON'S POV

"Get all our men ready, we're going tonight" I call to Ron. Even though I'm boss, we still work together. 

I walk out of the basement and into my room. Tonight will most likely be dangerous. The Ventto's aren't stupid enough to leave thousands of pounds worth of drugs left unprotected, therefore we need to be cautious. I pull on my bulletproof vest, a pair of black jeans and a black hoodie. I stuff my balaclava in my pocket and a pocket knife in my sock. I make sure my gun is properly loaded and head downstairs where the rest of my men are waiting.

"Right" I shout. "When we get there, we have to wait about an hour to see if we can notice any unusual activity, then, one by one we'll sneak into the house, kill as many men as we can and grab the drugs, then we head off. Be careful, we don't want to make too much disturbances or the police will come. Do you understand?"

They all nod. We all head into different black range rovers. I go in with Ron, Lorenzo, David and Jake, who's driving.

When we arrive, we park in different positions around the house. I told them I would give them a signal on when to attack. Straight away we notice how quiet it is, as if the street is dead. The only place we can see is open is a little café around the corner. However, knowing the Venttos,  this could be a trap.

"Right then, now we wait. Keep your eyes out for anything unusual. When I say on the radio go, we go." I say

It turned quiet. It was a bit of an awkward silence. After about half an hour, I start to get bored, however,  I know how stupid it would be to attack now.

"Ugh, I'm thirsty, I'm going to get a drink out of that café down the road, do yous want anything?" I said

Without even looking at me, they all replied "no" at the same time.

"Suit yourselves then. If anything happens, contact me over my radio. Not that anything will happen I don't think"

I get out of the car and pull off my balaclava. I don't want them to think I'm robbing their café do I?

I walk in and see that it's practically empty, apart from a couple of teenagers. I head over to the counter and see an old woman.

""Dear, can you serve this customer, my hands are full." She says sweetly to someone.

"Sure." That someone replies.

A young girl comes up from behind the counter. I look down at her. She's wearing a black vest top with a grey cardigan on top and leggings. Her hair is pinned back in a messy bun with a couple of strands curled out. She was pretty. She had emerald green eyes and golden brown hair which looked like it had strands of blonde in the light. I noticed that her eye was bruised as if she had been punched in the face. Like I said, she was pretty. She would look beautiful if her eyes shone more, but they didn't. To be honest, she looked dead. She stared at me and didn't say anything. I cleared my throat.

"Can I get a bottle of coke please." I say to her.

She nods. She looks around and sighs when she notices it's on the top shelf. She tries her hardest to reach. I'm about to offer to get it for her until she finally manages to grab it. As she does, the sleeve of her cardigan rides up her arm, revealing a scatter of finger mark bruises and burns on her pale skin. Jesus. This girl can't be over twenty and she looks like she's been through hell. Her face grows a bit pink when she realises that I was gaping at her bruises, it makes her look more alive. She hands me the bottle without looking me in the eye.

"£1.10 please" she says.

Her voice is soft and scarce. I feel sorry for this girl. I reach into my pocket and hand her a £20 note.

"Keep the change" I say and give her a wink. She looks surprised. Before she can say anything, I walk out. I can quite literally feel her eyes staring at my back. I open the door and the wind hits me in the face like a bucket of ice water. As I make my way back to car, I notice that it's still dead silent. I open the car door and climb inside. We still had half an hour to wait.

It was nearly midnight. We had about 15 minutes. I see something in the corner of my eye. It's that girl again, still just as zombie looking. She's locking up. She looks around and frowns. I would love to know what she's thinking. I notice that she still has that thin cardigan. The poor girl must be freezing. She spins around and walks of into the dark night. A part of me wanted to give her my jacket and walk her home safely. She looks too fragile to be walking home alone in the night. I shake off that thought. Right. I'm not waiting any longer.

"Right, I say we go" I say to the radio. "3,2,1,NOW".

We climb out of our car, silently, with  our guns out, ready to attack. We run towards the house. I throw a gas bomb into the door before entering that would knock anyone out cold, as they'll definitely be people there. When we see that the coast is clear, I go in first. I point my torch around each room. Strange. It's empty. The only guards in here were the three we knocked out with the gas bomb. Perhaps Ventto's men are busy doing something more important tonight and didn't expect us to attack. My men drag all the drugs back into the car, Jake stays outside, making sure everything is clear. Ron being Ron decides to shoot the three guards in the head, laughing. That man just loves to spill blood. We climb back into our cars and drive away.

"Well that was easy, I didn't expect that" I say.

"Yeah a bit too easy. Something doesn't seem right" Ron grunts. Typical Ron thinking too much into things.

When we get home, I go straight to my office and sit at my desk. I pour myself a cup of whisky and light up a tab. Something doesn't feel right. For someone reason I feel sick and worried. Not about myself, but about someone else, I just don't know who. Whoever it is, I feel like right now, they're going through hell...